Burst Angel Volume 3

Details

 Director: Koichi Ohata
 Catalogue Number: MVD2120
 Certificate: 15
 Date Released: 8th May 2006
 Screen: Widescreen 16:9
 Languages: English 5.1
 Additional Languages: Japanese (Dolby Digital 2.0)
 Subtitles: English
 Duration: 100 minutes

Special Features

• Audio commentary on 'The Wounded Outlaw' episode
• Radio drama
• Textless songs

Synopsis

It's only a matter of time before things turn violent...

Following the announcement of Sei's arranged marriage to a member of a rival faction, the veil drops on years of old rivalries. If you think an arranged marriage won't sit well with Sei, well, you can only imagine what Amy feels like when a hacker gets his fingers into Amy's computer...

Meanwhile, terrorists hijack a train and a giant bug is unleashed upon the city. All in a day's work for Jo. But has even Joe met her match in Ms. Takane Katsu, an elite law dog from Osaka? These two have more in common than they realize... RAPT. As RAPT sinks its teeth deeper into Tokyo, it begins to cast its eye towards Osaka. Will the city of Osaka crumble under the iron fist of RAPT?

Episodes Comprise:

9. Party of the Dragon
10. Uncharted Cyberspace
11. Easter Angel, Western Hawk
12. Tower of Tears

Cover

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Review

The third volume of the eye-candy filled series hits quite a slump, with some pretty dull and uneventful outings.

Audio:
I opted to listen to the Japanese 5.1 track for this review. The track sounded really good when the action kicked in with the sound effects making nice use of the channels. Music and dialogue sounded crisp and clear as well, and I didn't notice any dropouts or distortions during regular playback.

I briefly sampled the English dub, produced by FUNimation, and it sounded well cast with all the girls seeming to slide into their roles quite well.

Video:
Being a fairly new show from GONZO, we get a really nice anamorphic widescreen transfer for this series. I noticed no compression problems, no anti-aliasing and colours came out really vibrant and life-like. The series has quite an interesting look to it with its blend of a Western and sci-fi vibe, and it just looks really nice and helps you focus on the show itself.

Subtitles are in a nice yellow font, and are a good, clear size. I noticed no spelling or grammatical errors that stood out throughout the episodes.

My only issue with this disc is that, unlike the US release, for some reason Madman (who author the discs) or MVM decided not to include alternate angles. Although this time they switched it round and we now get the Japanese opening, I find annoying that now we get no translation for the credits at all. Why can't we just have alternate angles like on Full Metal Alchemist and the US release?

Menu:
The menus are all static, with the main menu featuring an image of Sei. On the right hand side we have the individual episode selection and the "Setup" and "Extras" options. The show's logo and volume title are just above them, with the funky opening theme playing over it. The two sub-menus are also static, with just text on the menu background. While they're definitely functional, they're also somewhat dull.

Extras:
This volume we get another nice selection of episodes, including the dub commentary for episode 10, which is nice to have but really, they couldn't have picked a worse episode to commentate. But maybe that was the point. We also get more radio dramas that appeared on the Japanese releases, presented here with subtitles as super-deformed images of the cast appear on screen. We get the lengthier "On Air Selection" 5, 6 and 7, with two shorter bonus tracks as well. They're a lot of fun since we don't get to see these sorts of extras often, and it's great to hear the cast having a bit of fun! We also get the textless opening and endings (both the English and Japanese versions) again.

Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
I suppose how you view this batch of episodes will largely depend on how much you like certain characters. Personally, after quite enjoying the series of two-parters that made up the first two volumes, I was quite disappointed with the two episodic adventures that started out this volume, and while the other two episodes form another two-parter, the first part of that is probably one of the least enjoyable episodes of the series so far for me (and given the one it follows, that's not a good thing).

It doesn't start out all that badly though, as the first episode has a decent amount of action and a nice bit of semi-characterisation for Sei, but it just didn't do a great deal for me. Meg and Amy join Sei as she's summoned by her grandfather to go on a cruise. On arrival, her grandfather chats with her about the heritage of their clan, and tells her that he has arranged a marriage for her to the Black Lotus clan's leader. He also gives her their clan's crest, which symbolises the leadership of the powerful clan. But it turns out that the Black Lotus' leader just wants her clan's crest so he can become the undisputed head of both, and so Sei is kidnapped leaving Meg of all people to help spearhead her rescue. Injected with some spiritual energy she goes on a bit of a rampage, but Jo still ends up coming in and stealing much of the limelight.

To be honest, though it had a nice focus on Sei, I just didn't find a great deal to get excited about. Yet again one of the team gets kidnapped (this time Sei instead of Meg) and the other girls have to save her. Jo ends up kicking all the ass in the end as well and ends up hogging all the glory. By this point as well, it even seemed a little silly to have Meg helping out with the rescue, since she just seems made to be kidnapped by this point.

It gets much worse in the next episode, with this one being completely throwaway. We get our first episode focussing heavily on Amy as her computer is hacked and she stomps off into town with Kyohei (well, she tricks him into going with her) to get her revenge by diving into cyberspace. It all goes a bit pear-shaped though, and to be frank it's all completely pointless. If you're going to have an episode focus on one character then it should at least show more about them or add an extra dimension to them, but no, in this case there's none of that. The only redeeming feature is the introduction of a new character, Leo, who created Django as his relationships with Jo and Sei seem very interesting indeed.

The final two episodes form a continuing story (which doesn't conclude on this volume), and it's definitely a tale of two halves. In the first part, a single train car crashes into a train full of passengers and the police find out that it didn't appear to have anyone on board. They search for suspicious characters and come across Jo. She's here in Osaka to protect a wrestler in the DDD called Mega Rider, who's pretty much the superhero that defeats everyone. It's all set up well and scripted that he'll beat his latest challenger from hell, but he and the organisers get far more than they bargained for when he transforms into a real monster. Jo ends up trying to help, but it's complete carnage.

Following the previous episode, this part left me almost just as under-whelmed. The story is just pretty dull and uninteresting, and I found myself clock-watching as the wrestling angle did nothing for me and seemed quite irrelevant to the whole plot (this despite the fact I used to love wrestling as a kid). Having said that, the next episode does go quite far in redeeming the opening part.

Jo gets arrested by a female cop, Takane, at the end of the first part, and at the start of the second she's interrogated but gives away little. Takane's father is the police chief, and meets with RAPT over the current situation. As Sei and Jo try and escape, they come under attack from a giant robot. Naturally, Meg, Amy and Leo are on the way with Django, but Gigantes still towers above it. A battle ensues, but Meg is captured by someone close to the police and Takane.

Ah, the shock ending. No, I don't mean Meg getting captured. That's normal and to be honest almost feels better than her being on the offensive, as it at least stops her being annoying. No, the shock is who captures her. Well, OK, it's not all that shocking given his ties to Takane, but I'd at least give the writers some credit for trying to salvage this story and make it interesting. This episode has some decent action, a few scenes of witty dialogue, and it just feels more like the slightly mediocre but at least enjoyable episodes of the series we've seen up until the opening of this volume.

In Summary:
Even if you were enjoying Burst Angel before, you will probably find at least one of the episodes her quite difficult to sit through. This volume was very disappointing as I felt the first two volumes had set the tone of a half-decent show, that while it was mediocre in terms of story the characters were fun and the action made it enjoyable. Here, the stories, go from acceptable to absolutely terrible and not much better, before the final episode salvages things and returns to the groove carved out in the last two volumes. Fans will want it for completeness' sake, and the fact the story on the next volume will continue from this one, but buy it with caution. (Anime-on-DVD)